


Muscles

by ariadnes_string



Category: British Actor RPF, Star Trek RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-25
Updated: 2013-05-25
Packaged: 2017-12-12 21:56:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/816485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariadnes_string/pseuds/ariadnes_string
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Benedict couldn’t wait to show Tom his new body.  No, not like that.  Well, not 100% like that, anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Muscles

**Author's Note:**

> The only thing true about this is that Benedict Cumberbatch really did work with Tom Hardy's trainer for _Into Darkness_. Everything else is the most outrageous sort of fiction and absolutely did not happen.
> 
> Spoilers for _Into Darkness_ , I suppose

Benedict couldn’t wait to show Tom his new body. No, not like that. Well, not 100% like that, anyway.

The new bulk still felt odd, as if he were walking around in a carapace of some kind, like a very cut teenage ninja turtle. But it was a good sort of odd—good to be taking up a bit more room in the world, to feel muscles working in places his old routine of swimming and yoga had never touched. And it was all down to Tom’s trainer. Well, Mr. Monroe, plus about a cubic ton of chicken. But mostly the trainer. Which was reason enough to make sure Tom saw what he had wrought.

So the next time they were in the same city (what city that was, Ben was a bit hazy on—they all blurred together a bit these days), he texted Tom right away.

_When cn I kick yr ass?_

Tom wrote back almost immediately: _bring it, my americanized friend_. Then, _but if you’ve actually started talking that way it’s the end of a beautiful friendship_.

 _Fuck you Hardy_.

The phone spat out an address. Apparently they were in a city Tom was inhabiting long enough to be renting a house.

Benedict felt a little shiver of excitement when he got out of the cab in front of Tom’s glass and steel rental. He had to stop himself from flexing his biceps and delts—better to seem relaxed, like he was used to carrying around this kind of muscle, probably.

Tom opened the door in three days worth of stubble, a fraying t-shirt, and boxer briefs. As usual, the clothes only served as a reminder of how naked he was underneath them. His eyes were half-lidded, and his lips were curled around a beer bottle, but he lowered it to throw an arm around Ben’s neck. Ben thought he felt a kiss pressed against his ear, or right below it, but he couldn’t be sure. He shivered again—as long as they’d known each other, he never got used to the first impact of Tom’s presence, the warm solidity of him, the challenge.

“Good to see you, mate,” said Tom, releasing him and waving him inside. “Especially now there’s so much more of you to see.”

“Shut up,” said Ben. 

Though of course the satisfaction of being seen by Tom was exactly why he’d come. And so, once Tom had gotten him his own beer, Benedict stood stock still in the center of the light-filled sitting room, his stomach doing tiny back flips, while Tom stalked around him, raising and lowering his bottle in a way that shouldn’t have been nearly as hot as it was.

“Mmmm, yes,” Tom said, running a finger tip over the recently augmented line of Ben’s shoulders. “Monroe has done an excellent job, especially considering what he had to work with.”

“Please. Jealousy doesn’t become you, Tom.”

“When I think of what a weedy thing you were when I first met you.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“Pasty, too.”

“I have sun-sensitive skin.”

“Pigeon-chested.”

“Punch me,” said Benedict.

Tom stopped his prowl; he looked decidedly more awake now, eyes open and glinting. “Oh, we’re in a Chuck Palahniuk novel now, are we? You really have spent too much time in LA.” 

“It’s the usual method of testing someone’s strength, isn’t it?”

“No,” said Tom. “I think the usual method is more like this.” He stepped closer to Ben, slipped a hand under his shirt, and batted his eyes. “Ooo, Benny, your muscles, they’re so _firm_. Have you been working out?”

“Stop that,” Ben said, batting the caressing hand away. It tickled. And it felt disturbingly good.

“Okay then,” said Tom. He hauled an arm back and hit Benedict squarely in the stomach.

“Ow.”

“Another Hollywood myth put to rest.” Tom crossed his arms and grinned.

Benedict straightened up—he’d hardly been doubled over at all, really—and retrieved his beer for a welcome swig. “Not fair—you didn’t give me any warning.”

“I think you’ll find your real life puncher rarely does. But all right: I’ve seen the merchandise, now take me for a spin.”

Benedict blinked. So far, they’d been well within the bounds of whatever mock-flirtatious protocol they’d developed over the years, but was Tom now, maybe, finally, edging across some line. Anticipatory heat started to prick his face. “Wha--?” he stammered.

“I mean, show me your moves. It can’t all just be for show. Show me some Action Benny.”

Tom was smirking hard, and Benedict knew he should end this—this whatever it was—right now—drink his beer, move on to gossip about mutual friends, like they usually did. But he couldn’t seem to give up being the object of Tom’s gaze just yet—a gaze that was mocking, sure, but also interested—perhaps quite interested, indeed.

Feeling foolish, he pivoted, imagining he had John Harrison’s coat swirling around him and one of those giant futuristic weapons in his hands, coming to rest in a pose he knew set his new body off to full effect—not that he’d practiced in front of a mirror or anything.

“Very nice,” said Tom, laughing and clapping.

“Yes, well…” Benedict returned to a more normal stance, blushing in earnest now.

“Now you punch me.”

“No, really, I—don’t you think we’ve had enough of that already?”

“Aw, g’wan. I want to know if you’ve got any better since _Tinker, Tailor_ , because I have to hope that you’ve made some improvement on that pathetic—“

The goad was too much. Benedict tried to remember everything the fight coordinator had taught him—which muscles to use and how to get the angle of his arm just right—pulled back, made a fist. And—

It all went as disastrously as he'd known it would. Because Ben might have moves, but Tom actually knew how to fight. Had probably been born knowing, plus he’d done that whole movie about MMA fighters—the one that made Ben bawl every time watched it (not that he’d ever admit that to Tom).

Which is to say, Tom leapt out quick as a cat and grabbed the arm Ben was extending to punch him, twisted it, and pulled. Then they were suddenly both down on the floor, rolling about, scrabbling for purchase like schoolboys and narrowly avoiding pieces of what was probably quite valuable mid-century modern furniture. Tom used his legs as well as his arms—something the fight coordinator had never bothered to teach Benedict—and Ben was sure that any minute he was going to end up in an unbreakable thigh lock like the bloke in the MMA movie. 

The thought made him lose his concentration for a moment. 

When he got it back, though, he was pleased to find that he could hold his own against Tom better than he’d expected. For a while, at least, he could shove Tom away whenever he got close to pinning him—could hold him off long enough that they both started to pant and sweat even in the air-conditioning. It wasn’t quite the reunion Ben had imagined when he got in the cab, but he wasn’t complaining; it was a relief of sorts to be doing something this ridiculous, this intimate, this ridiculously intimate, after all those weeks in front of the cameras with strangers. 

Finally, though, Tom’s skill trumped Benedict’s newfound strength and he trapped Benedict under him firmly and irrevocably. Tom hadn’t shed his Bane poundage, but he wore it well, a plush layer over the undeniable muscle. He pressed his whole body into Benedict’s now, a luxurious, pleasurable, weight. 

“Is this the part where I tap out?” Benedict gasped

“No,” Tom told him. His lips were wet and his eyes dark. “This is the part where you kiss me.”

 _Oh_ , thought Benedict, and _oh god_ and _yes_ as Tom moved in kiss him instead. It wasn’t just the glorious feeling of Tom’s lips on his, his tongue invading Ben’s mouth, or Tom’s familiar, frowsy scent, made sharper now by exertion and arousal. It wasn’t just his awareness of Tom hardening against his thigh, the thin briefs hiding nothing. It was all of that together, plus an overwhelming, almost nostalgic, yearning, for all the times they’d almost done this, and then played it for laughs instead.

He meant to say something witty when Tom finally pulled back to take a breath, something like, “I never took you for a size queen, Mr. Hardy,” but he couldn’t. He just swallowed twice to get his voice back under control and said, “We’ve never done that before.”

“No,” Tom agreed, “we haven’t.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t now. Charlotte—“ Given all the crazy impulses his body was firing at him, Benedict was quite proud of himself for remembering Charlotte’s name, much less scrupling at her reaction. 

“Charlotte’s fine with it—I called her before you got here. Though of course we’d talked about it before.” 

“Oh. Right. Okay, then.” Ben couldn’t quite get his mind around the idea that Tom had thought to get permission while Ben was _still in the taxi_ \--much less the idea that they’d talked about this before. But that was Hardy all over—far more forwarding thinking than his almost lazy manner would lead you to believe.

“She just said not to do anything I couldn’t tell her about in the morning.” Ben’s face must have fallen, because Tom laughed, and added, “Which is quite a capacious list of things.” Tom shifted his weight a bit, so that his cock was more neatly lined up with Ben’s hipbone. He rocked a little, and made a soft, tantalizing, turned-on kind of sound. “So, Benny,” he purred, “is it okay with you?”

Thereafter, things descended into a something of a blur. In truth, the dick-on-dick action wasn’t entirely new to Ben—there’d been a few times at school, and a very private hook-up or two after he broke up with Olivia. But those had been impersonal affairs, a matter of getting off, pure and simple. This was different. With Tom it was like coming home and going somewhere completely new all at the same time.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, and Tom smiled, slow and devilish.

Their brief, furious, tussle seemed to have leached any franticness from the encounter. Now they went slow: Tom because, while he had his bursts of energy, he was basically a laidback sort of guy; Benedict because he still felt cautious, and because he was reasonably sure that whether Charlotte approved or not, this might never happen again. He wanted it to last.

He let Tom get him out of his shirt and jeans—Tom’s own clothes had vanished as if they’d never been there in the first place. And he tried to pay close attention to what happened after that, he really did, because it turned out that all the things he’d imagined Tom could do with that mouth—and he’d imagined plenty—paled beside what he could _actually_ do with it, and Ben knew he wanted to remember every single one, for future delectation. 

But the flood of sensations proved too much for him, and before he could sort one thing out from another, Ben found Tom pressed along his back, his arm around Ben’s waist and his fingers stroking Ben’s cock, while his own cock thrust between Ben’s thighs to the same, languid rhythm.

“Tommy.” Ben’s hips bucked of their own accord, trying to get Tom to speed up, to offer some release. “I can’t—I’m going to—“

“Shhh,” Tom murmured against his neck, for all the world like he was gentling a horse. “Take it easy, we’ve got all afternoon.”

But it took a much shorter time than that for Ben to lose his battle. Orgasm washed over him like a tide, and the only thing that consoled him for things ending was Tom tightening his arm around him, all control gone as he grunted, then growled, and then positively keened, going over the edge in a shaking, clinging, tumble. 

Afterwards, Ben propped himself up against the tasteful, low-slung sofa, and surveyed the damage: clothes strewn hither and yon, furniture out of place, but nothing broken, as far as he could see. 

An uncomfortable thought occurred to him. “Tom,” he said hesitantly. “You don’t think that the fact that we did this now—and not before—though maybe we both wanted to—you don’t think it has anything to do with—“ 

Tom was still lolling on the carpet, idly scratching his belly. He made no sign of having heard. Ben prodded him with his toe. 

“Hardy,” he said, trying for some kind of irony. “You don’t just love me for my muscles, do you?” Christ, was this how girls felt when they’d had a boob job?

Tom rolled over on his side. His face had resumed the heavy-lidded somnolence it’d had when Ben arrived. He looked confused; then his eyes softened. “I’ve always wanted to fuck you, Benny, you know that.” And, really, only Tom could make that sound like gentle reassurance. “Timing’s just never been right before. Besides, no matter how big and famous you get, you’re always going to be that curly-haired prat from _Stuart_ to me.”

“Yeah.” Benedict huffed a sigh of relief. “Ridiculous, huh? Who would’ve thought back then that we’d both end up playing summer tent-pole super-villains? “

Tom laughed. “Speak for yourself, mate.” He grabbed for Ben’s foot and started tickling. “Or should I say, Khaaaa—“

“Don’t you fucking dare.” Ben launched himself at Tom, trying to get a hand over his mouth. Tom rolled away, 

And just like that, they were at it again.


End file.
